Introduction

This chapter considers the role and nature of ethics in the theory and practice of feminist approaches to foreign policy. From their earliest articulations, feminist approaches to foreign policy have been framed in explicitly moral terms. In 2015, Margot Wallström – Sweden's Foreign Minister and trailblazer of feminist foreign policy – described it as seeking the same goals as ‘any visionary foreign policy: peace, justice, human rights and human development’ (Wallström, cited in Rupert, 2015). Similarly, in 2018, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a speech emphasizing the connections between a feminist foreign policy, human rights and the democratic values which uphold the rules-based international order (Government of Canada, 2018). In 2021, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta outlined an ‘Indigenous foreign policy’ for New Zealand, guided by Māori principles. This turn not only centres Indigenous peoples, but Māori values – interconnectedness, responsibility and custodianship. While this is not a ‘feminist’ foreign policy, striking lines of connection can be drawn between these progressive, value-based turns in foreign policy, as this chapter will discuss. In all these cases, there was a clear effort to position foreign policy as seeking to further not simply the national interest, but the wider moral aims of world peace, global justice and human rights for all. But unlike earlier, post-Cold War efforts to develop ethical foreign policy, these new approaches seek to realize these goals by challenging unequal gender-based and colonial relations of power.

Although it is widely understood that feminist foreign policy is inherently ethical, there has been relatively little critical reflection on precisely what this ethical content is, and how it ought to be reflected in foreign policy that is explicitly labelled feminist. In line with the rhetoric of state officials described earlier, feminist foreign policy has been described as embodying ‘broad cosmopolitan norms of global justice and peace’ (Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond, 2016: 323). Alternative understandings of ethics – including relational and care ethics – have also been used to theorize feminist foreign policy (Aggestam et al, 2019; Robinson, 2021a). Moreover, it is notable that the ethicality of feminist foreign policy has provided the basis for both praise and disdain; while some commentators argue for the need for a normative reorientation and an ethically informed framework for foreign policy (Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond, 2016), others are critical of the ‘saviour narrative’ of feminist foreign policy (Novovic, 2023).